


Everyone's Moment

by heibai



Series: there's a first time for everything [1]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: M/M, MAKE OUT SESSION BINCH, an innocent-ish rendition of unresolved sexual tension, happy sad angst fluff all balled up into one messy ass story, mowp (make out without plot), ok i'll stop, truly it's just them making out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-25
Updated: 2018-09-25
Packaged: 2019-07-17 12:05:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16095311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heibai/pseuds/heibai
Summary: Yes.Yes is the simplest answer, isn’t it?And so, when Renjun was sitting in a darkened, deserted classroom way past their school hour and his crush asked him,“have you ever kissed anyone?”Renjun answered, without hesitation, with a yes.





	Everyone's Moment

**Author's Note:**

> :)))  
> Don't ask me what drove me to write this (because I don't even know)

Jeno intimidated him.

 

Yes, he offered Renjun nothing but smiles and warm pleasantries on the rare occasions they found themselves solely at each other's company, but there seemed to be _something_ about the way he conducted himself that caused a thick, invisible wall of awkwardness to materialise on the empty space that spanned between the two. A sense that he was a bigger character than he ever let on, and the _Jeno_ that he showed to Renjun is just a toned down, sanitised version of himself. Like something that he put up as an act of mercy, something that caused Renjun to feel as if he needed to tip his head down and thank him for it, as the other option meant that he has to expose himself, head on, to the sight and heat of a holy fire that would turn him blind in a second.

 

It was then a testament for his stupidity when Renjun decided _to hell with it._ To hell with being blind. To hell with living his life knowing he will go straight to _hell._ He still wanted to know Jeno better. 

 

It was only the worry of how he knew he was never going to be _cool_ enough for Jeno that haunted him on all of his waking moment. Haunted every shaky inhales he took before he answered any of Jeno’s questions regarding the art project that they were forced to collaborate on. He felt like he would either throw up, swallow his own tonsils, or burst into tears everytime Jeno allowed him to speak in more than two sentences at one go. Which was all the time. Which meant that Renjun was always at the verge of tearing up in Jeno’s presence. _Which_ , at the end of the day, was not a great thing to feel.

 

Because he wanted to be cool for Jeno, as it seemed that he would only give the time of day to someone who he saw as _cool._ And being a blubbering mess that overcompensated their awkwardness with laughters much too loud and animated to be natural was _definitely_ not cool.

 

And maybe that’s why Jeno intimidated him so much.

 

Though probably intimidation was too kind of a word.

 

Just like Jeno’s pandering, overly delicate way of treating their trivial meetings, Renjun’s word of choice to describe Jeno might be his psyche’s way of sparing him from having to spend his waking days walking around knowing that he feared the person he likes. Fear that, as Renjun figured out fairly quickly, came from the realisation of how much power Jeno has over him. As a person, as a human being.

 

How easy he, a stranger, essentially, caused Renjun to feel such strong desire to be something he never was.

 

(Or maybe because he unconsciously knew that Jeno had awoken something he never knew existed, a beast he could feel clawing at the back of his throat everytime they met up on a darkened, deserted classroom way past the end of their school hours).

 

_

 

The sun was a giant ball of deep orange, half dipping over the netted fence of their school's badminton court, and Renjun had been working on _their_ art project, by _himself,_ for the last thirty minutes. Jeno was nowhere to be found and Renjun was starting to feel a little bit… miffed.

 

Though by how painfully amicable and casual their relationship was, no matter how much Renjun wanted to be mad at the boy who surely will rush into the classroom, with his hair plastered all over his damp forehead and a basketball tucked loosely under his sweaty arms, he couldn’t. He knew he couldn’t. (Jeno might run him over with a corn harvester and Renjun would probably still smile and say _no worries.)_

 

Renjun suddenly heard the familiar _thud thud thud_ of Jeno’s basketball shoes bouncing against the landings of their school’s rickety stair, and it gave enough time for a stupidly wide grin to form _and be erased_ from his face.

 

(But try as he might, Renjun could never erase the blush that dusted across the bridge of his nose. And sometimes, from the way Jeno smiled at him, with those downturned half moons of eyes and the little lift at the tips of his eyebrows, made Renjun think that he _knew_ the reason behind his blushings.)

 

“I am SO sorry!” Jeno came huffing and puffing into the classroom, looking _exactly_ like the image Renjun had in his brain, and then some. Because no imagination could provide him with the remaining four of human’s hard senses and those, ladies and gentlemen, were the true deal breaker.

 

In between his word of apologies, Renjun could hear the shallow pants which he got after he probably ran full speed from the basketball court to their classroom. Jeno seemed to be trying his best to hide it, as if he was embarrassed to show Renjun that someone as physically active as him could be physically _tired._ But that only led to even more torture on Renjun's side, because each puffs Jeno forced through his flared nostrils would grace along the back of Renjun’s trembling hands, twisting his mind more and more with each phantom caresses.

 

And his cheeks too were a victim. Two mounds of crimson pink that trapped between them a nose who was trying its best to ignore the sun-kissed smell of Jeno’s drenched tee. They wouldn’t stop twitching, just like the nose of a little kitten too excited for dinner time, who couldn’t wait to bury his whole face inside something that promise nothing else but delight.

 

The inappropriate thoughts that popped into his brain caused Renjun to scrunch his face in shock and disgust. _At himself._ But Jeno seemed to think otherwise.

 

“Do I… smell?” The tail of his sentence was muffled when Jeno buried half of his face into the front of the school’s basketball team jersey, and it instantly turned Renjun into a blubbering mess of jazz hands and an even deeper blush.

 

“No,- no no I’m just,- I thought I was going to sneeze.”

 

 _‘If only he knew,’_ a stray thought entered Renjun’s head after he saw Jeno shrugging his shoulder in acceptance of his asspull reasoning and scooted his chair even closer to their craft project. If only he knew indeed.

 

 

_

 

From their measly, bi-weekly private arts and crafts meetup, Renjun learned that Jeno is a chronic fidgeter. Either it was twirling and ripping the strips of newspaper they were using to papier-mâché their ecosystem mock-up, rolling and pinching the small ball of air-dry clay until they disintegrated from the heat and friction of his fingertips, or, if he had nothing for his restless hands to play with, bouncing his right leg in a monotonous rhythm.

 

And as the schedule for that day was to paint the dried up model, Jeno settled on the latter form of channeling his over-abundance of energy.

 

 _Thud thud thud,_ he picked up the spare paintbrush from the corner of Renjun’s desk and unceremoniously jabbed it into the cheap acrylic paint pot, before he proceeded to splat the unmixed blob of burnt sienna onto the top of their volcano and dragging it around to make a painfully streaky-looking patch.

 

“Wet it first.”

 

“Hmm?”

 

Renjun snatched the paintbrush from Jeno’s fingers and swirled it briefly in the murky rinsing cup. Just like his palm, the brush handle felt slick under Renjun’s dry fingertips and his eyes involuntarily darted to Jeno’s naked arm, completely exposed as he was wearing a borderline scandalous sleeveless top, and he wondered how Jeno’s skin would feel to the touch. If it will be just as slick as the surface of the paintbrush. Was it just as firm, or much, much softer? He wanted to ask Jeno to switch paintbrushes so he could touch _his_ longer but decided not to at the very last second. “There. It’ll make it easier. Also, mix up that brown with some green.”

 

“Why?”

 

Why was supposed to be _his_ question. Because when Renjun went to hand the paintbrush back, Jeno accepted it with a side of deliberately overlapping his sweaty hand over Renjun’s. The pads of his fingertips felt plump as they pressed ever so softly on Renjun’s knuckles _and he wished that it was pressing somewhere else._

 

“It’ll look better. Trust me.”

 

 _Thud thud thud,_ the next thirty minutes passed in silence, save for the occasional hums coming from Jeno who surprisingly was deeply engrossed in his paintings, and the creaks of Renjun’s chair, as he tried to find internalised reasons after internalised reasons to justify his shifts and scoots until he could get his left knee to graze against Jeno’s right. Just slightly, _very_ slightly, because knowing that the folded fabric of his pants were catching the hem of Jeno’s basketball shorts everytime his legs bounced up was more than enough knowledge for Renjun. And because anything more than that would make it _obvious._ And he didn’t want it to be so. He didn’t want it to be so obvious he risked having Jeno pull his legs away. Or pull his everything away, truly. Just like how everyone else did when they find out.

 

The sun dipped lower and lower, and it casted an eerie orange hue over everything. Black and orange and Renjun’s eyes were starting to blur from the monochromatic tones. But Jeno didn’t break his stillness and Renjun wasn’t willing to be the one to move and so they stayed silent, even if he was sure that none of them could clearly see into which pot of colour they were dipping their paintbrush into.

 

_Thud thud thud._

 

“Have you ever kissed anyone?”

 

Why, was his question. Disjointed conversation that jumped from one wild topic to another was a given thing when spending time with Jeno but this was a new thing, him dropping the bomb at the first five seconds of a chat like this. Still, Renjun didn’t hesitate in giving his lie. Maybe because he thought that giving a no-nonsense answer, instead of evading the bizarrely out-of-the-blue question with another, will make him look _cool._

 

“Yes.”

 

(But maybe, it was because Renjun somehow knew that if he gave anything longer than a three-lettered word, he would instantly break down in tears).

 

“How was it?”

 

Renjun shifted his gaze from the lake he’s been working on the last fifteen minutes and saw, for the first time, what Jeno did to waste _his_ last fifteen minutes. He was swirling, _only_ swirling, his clean paintbrush around the crater of the volcano. Over, and over, and over, creating a layer of lighter mossy green ring from how his brush was stripping the wet paint off the papier-mâché structure.

 

Has he been staring? Did he know?

 

Were all of Renjun’s careful precautionary measures ended up being useless?

 

Jeno leaned over the desk and it was the thing that broke their previously uncrossable distance. The move that caused their knees to fully press against each other’s and led Renjun to realise that the tempo of his leg-stompings were picking up.

 

 _Thud thud thud,_ he was no longer able to distinguish whether the thudding sound that filled the empty classroom came from Jeno’s foot or from his heartbeat, which has grown so loud he could practically taste them at the back of his throat.

 

“I forgot.”

 

They must’ve looked like they came out of a cartoon, a splash page on a graphic novel where Jeno was the main character on an action adventure long-form, best selling comic book while Renjun was his arch nemesis. Because he looked so calm, sitting there at the side of the classroom still bathed in the waning light of day, while Renjun was hunched on the opposite side that has just completed its full induction into the dark side.

 

Renjun felt like his innards have just turned into a school of electric eels and his compulsive scratching of the base of his nails grew to be too measly a strategy to quell his anxiety. When Jeno gave him a disbelieved smirk, Renjun found himself jumping into a stiff brace position, with his paint-splotched fingers gripping the edges of his table so hard the ends of his nails were starting to glow against their shadowy backdrop. And all because his brain was telling him, shouting at him to run away, while his body was begging him so desperately to stay. Well, he did. He was starting to hyperventilate and feel nauseous from the fight he was putting up, but he stayed.

 

“Oh,- you’re lying. How could you forget something like a kiss,-”

 

“Why are you doing this?”

 

The force of his fingernails digging into the soft, rotting surface of the desk caused a little bit of the outer layer to crack. And at the same time, Jeno’s painfully casual follow up question did the same thing to Renjun’s measly attempt of being cool.

 

“I’m just curious.”

 

Renjun couldn’t understand how Jeno was able to be so relaxed while he looked like he was ready to dart out of the room at just the drop of a needle. His body was coiled up so tightly his shoulders and thighs were starting to burn, and from how the entirety of his upper body was leaning on the tips of his toes, his calves have also started to tremble like a skinny tree during a lightning storm. Renjun wondered if Jeno could feel his exhausted tremors through their one point of bodily contact. Yet strangely, Renjun was not ashamed by this, unlike so many times before when he would grow embarrassed everytime he asked Jeno to help him execute physical tasks that he failed to do. Like reaching for their model that was stored at the top of their class’ tallest cupboard, or opening up a new jar of paint. Because somehow, right then and there, Renjun reveled in the thought that Jeno could _feel_ and finally understand just how defenseless he was, how weak. How so very much softer he would feel under those supple palms if Jeno would just reach out and add another location where their bodies were linked together.

 

“I don’t understand.”

 

“Just tell me.”

 

“I don’t,-” the sharp sound of rubber skidding across their school’s linoleum floor cut Renjun’s sentence short. And he could only sit on his chair, certifiably shivering out of his wits, as he eyed Jeno while he walked the short distance to Renjun's left.

 

“Yes or no?” Why would the devil smile when he looked down on Renjun? The expression on Jeno’s face was so calm while Renjun was all wide eyes and lips being bitten so hard it was a miracle he hasn’t started bleeding. “Yes or no,” he repeated his question, voice still soft yet noticeably firmer than his previous go. Jeno truly didn’t seem to know what effect he has on Renjun, because when the latter took way too long in formulating his answer, he opted to reach down a fiddle with a stray strand of Renjun’s bangs.

 

“Yes or no to _what?!”_  Renjun's tone clipped at the end, just like how he also swatted Jeno’s hand harshly away from his forehead. Not that he didn’t like it. Oh, for the sake of everything in this world, he loved it. It was only because he was unsure if he was ready for what _he thought_ would come next. If it did he know he will die, and if it didn’t, he will also die.

 

So, when Jeno went to grab his hand inside a lax hold, Renjun nearly asked then and there, for Jeno to take him. _‘Take you where?’_ He would probably ask. _‘I don’t know, anywhere.’_ Even though he should've known that what Renjun meant was not a _somewhere_ kind of take. 

 

 _‘No, no, no,’_ Renjun thought, _‘he’s a stranger, he’s a stranger, I should never allow a stranger to... get anywhere closer than this?!’_

 

But is a stranger someone who knew all about your favourite movies and books? Is a stranger someone who knew all about your hopes and dreams as a doe-eyed eighteen years old, and the fears and beliefs of an old soul? Can you call someone, who you’re not sure you know, but has learned to know you better than anyone else, a stranger?

 

“Did you lie to me?” Jeno asked as he began picking on the flaky dead skin around the base of Renjun’s nails.

 

And to his really politely asked question, Renjun answered with a combination of behaviours that if done separately probably wouldn’t have resulted in anything dire, but if combined, apparently managed to cause a misplaced frown to develop on the face of the embodiment of sunshine himself.

 

Renjun scoffed, yanked his hand away from Jeno’s hold, and exasperatedly yelled,

 

_“Yes!”_

 

The silence that followed his outburst was deafening. Not even his heartbeat, or the clacks of Jeno’s fingernails clashing against one another, could match up to it. “I’m disappointed," Jeno then turned his back on Renjun and plopped himself on the empty chair to his left, and never before has he felt a stronger urge to reach out and apologise. _‘Forgive me,’_ it would probably start like so, _‘I don’t know why I always push those I care away without any rhyme or reason.’_

 

“I thought you could’ve shown me how.”

 

Renjun always thought that, rather than confessing to someone and getting from them a hard _“no, I don’t like you, sorry,”_ he’d rather suffer in the grey and hold on for the hope that they might like him back. That was what he’d been doing all his life. Trapping himself voluntarily in a limbo, too afraid to go and pull the string to open the Schrodinger box and see if the cat was dead or not.

 

But this time, it was different. Not even a second after the bomb was 'detonated', the cat meowed and it pulled the string to _Renjun’s_ heart. He has no other choice but to pull the lid off the box and took the cat out by the scruff of its neck. Alive and breathing and looking at him with the brightest set of eyes that gleamed with a silent _‘thank you.’_

 

Jeno only spent a fraction of a second sitting on that chair, quickly jumping back onto his feet and for the first time in that early evening, he showed on his face a sliver of distress. But it was quickly erased when he dragged his palm over his face, down from his chin, over his messy hair, before settling at the back of his neck. If at first Renjun saw panic, at that moment he saw an ample amount of desire. The exact same expression for when a child wants something but knows, that if they ever begged their parents for it, would completely seal the deal of being denied. Even if maybe, at the start, there was a sliver of possibility that their parents would've gotten them the toy for Christmas if they behaved.

 

But it seemed from how hard Jeno was biting his lips, so much so that when he popped it open it took a considerable amount of time for blood to rush back in, he didn't have it in him the will to keep on behaving.

 

And it translated to how he decided to execute the series of events that unfolded next. Very much so.

 

Two sure steps towards the chair Renjun was sitting, and a bend so rapid Renjun could hear his backbone cracking under the pressure.

 

But then he stopped, just when only a crack in reality separated the tips of their noses. And a quick glance up to look into his eyes gave all the answers that Renjun needed.

 

Jeno might be cool. He might have more popularity being an eleventh grader than Renjun would ever have in the entire span of his life. But it didn't mean that 1.) he would ever take advantage on their perceived power imbalance and 2.) it was him who has the say between the two of them.

 

It was Renjun. It's always been Renjun.

 

The little smile he gave when Renjun figured everything out made it seem that Jeno has just finished reading his mind. And it caused him to realise that maybe, Jeno wasn't that much of a stranger after all.

 

With his permission given, Jeno leaned just a tiny little fraction forward and pressed their lips together. Something small, something quaint. Something that his parents would call a kiss of  _‘hello goodbye’._

 

Before it happened, he didn’t know what to expect. But now that they finally broke through the ultimate physical barrier, Renjun knew instantly that he expected this kiss to alleviate all the burdens he’d put across his shoulders. His worry, his shame, his lust and cravings, and the hope that a magical firework would detonate the dam around his heart to fill it with something. Anything but the suffocation that came from his age-old longing to be _wanted_.

 

And maybe that was why Renjun went and chased after Jeno’s slowly retreating lips, leaping up from his seat and throwing himself into the journey to seek for some explanation. Because this was supposed to be _good._ His endless bedtime scenarios that have run for nearly a year have conditioned him to think that a kiss with Jeno was supposed to be _amazing._ And yes, his naked arms coiling around Renjun’s waist in a last-second attempt to keep both of them on their feet felt amazing, and their hips pressing against each other when Jeno’s collided against the desk on their left and he had nowhere else to go was magnificent. But the kiss? The kiss was confusingly banal.

 

Nothing but frustration came to Renjun’s mind, even if the one they were currently having, the one Renjun was forcing onto Jeno just like how he was forcing his tongue into his mouth, has grown to be much more aggressive than the one he received before. Messy, sloppy, open mouthed kisses done by two naive children who hadn’t a clue on what to do when faced with this kind of situation.

 

Renjun only realised how much he was giving himself away in the blind trust that Jeno wouldn’t just be an opportunist and ran away with it wholesale when he felt Jeno’s arm slowly climbing up the wrinkled back of his uniform, before his fingers rested casually against his nape. Then, as if Jeno couldn't stave off his restlessness any longer, a lone finger began to draw circles on Renjun's skin. And unlike his usual monotonic foot tapings, these loops cycled through periods of slow, languid motions before picking up into urgent circles that felt like they were just a second short from stripping Renjun's skin raw, perfectly mimicking the ebb and flow of their kiss. Unusually too, this time, instead of turning him into a rigid statue of nervousness and panic, Jeno’s cold, soft skin against the dry and heated expanse of Renjun’s own caused him to feel as if he was melting. Melting into his demanding arms, into the nook of Jeno’s fair neck, the shallow dip between his nostrils and the tip of his nose where a little bit of sweat collected in, through the gaps between his teeth and the peculiar texture of his tongue. Everything. Everything and anything. Renjun wished to be nothing more but the water inside Jeno’s plastic bottle, so he could be swallowed whole and settle into parts inside his body that no kiss could never fill.

 

He was just like a kitten, so desperate to feed from its mother, clawing at Jeno’s shoulders and kneading the roots of his damp hair as his determination to further eliminate the already nonexistent distance between them caused the table that Jeno was resting on to shift along the slippery tiled floor.

 

Renjun felt his mouth moving on their own to let out an indiscernible mumble, and it was answered with an equally out-off-this-world hum by Jeno. They knew, if they wanted to clearly communicate, that they should probably dial down the nearly feral make-out session and put some distance between their faces. But Renjun was still hungrily seeking for the elusive truth and Jeno was seemingly too busy trying to provide him with some, that they didn’t even begin to decrease the intensity of their kiss until Renjun was obviously struggling to go for more than five seconds without taking in shallow, breathless gasps. Even then, they still took all their sweet time on doing their partings because they both unconsciously knew, that nothing so intense could be stopped so abruptly without anything breaking in the process.

 

They only pulled one thing away at a time until Jeno’s lips pressing lightly on the crown of Renjun’s head was all that’s left from their previous escapade. It was such an innocent image nobody could’ve guessed what happened before.

 

“Are you sure that was your first?”

 

Renjun opened his eyes and for a second he thought he’d been blinded from kissing someone so hard (not that one could be the cause of the other). But the glint of fluorescent lights that flickered from the school’s corridor and bounced against the black windows of their classroom caused Renjun to realise that it was only the night, as they apparently have kissed through the entire span of a sunset.

 

It was well into nighttime, and their parents might've started to worry. But he didn’t want to go home.

 

Renjun wanted to stay there, in a dark classroom, huddling together close like this. They would talk, and talk, and talk, his voice muffled by the bunch of fabric collected between his collarbones, and Jeno would incessantly giggle as Renjun’s hair wouldn’t stop tickling the inside his nose. They would talk until he no longer felt like throwing up everytime Jeno asked him to tell more about himself, until there was nothing left for them to talk about and they’ll stay like this. In each other’s company. In silence. Because it was crazy how he already missed the warmth of Jeno even when he still felt it under his skin.

 

Was that too much to ask?

 

Apparently, it was. Because before Renjun could even say _‘I told you, I forgot,’_ he heard the unmistakable flip-flap of their school’s caretaker sandals echoing down the empty corridors. Instinct took over, and he yanked himself away from Jeno just in time for the lights inside their class to be switched on.

 

The caretaker only stood there under the doorframe, while Jeno silently sat leaning on the table behind him. Renjun was the only one moving, as he was trying his best to dilute the tension in the air with as much frenzied movement he could fit in the span of thirty seconds.

 

“... make sure not to leave a mess,” he finally spoke, in that lazy, drawn out way of someone that couldn’t give a shit to the job they’re doing. Although, from the way Renjun caught a quick, worried frown when he went to give him a small thumbs up, it was clear that the caretaker has solved the puzzle scattered on the scene unfolding before him.

 

Maybe it was only out of pity that he walked away without saying anything. Maybe it was because he couldn’t bear the atmosphere inside the room that was quickly shifting from intense passion, to intense awkwardness. Or maybe, he’s seen how Renjun’s entire facial features were scrunched in the feeble effort of holding back a strong torrent of tears, and he wasn’t willing to add to his already underpaid job, the task of consoling what he must’ve thought as a heartbroken child.

 

It was only out of decency that the caretaker decided to pull the door shut. And the final click resonating inside his brain acted as the cue that told him it was finally okay for him to let out his tears. (Renjun failed to notice, in the midst of it all, that he wasn’t the only person who was distressed inside that room. And his tears didn’t help Jeno, who was at that point already struggling with the growing guilt inside his heart.)

 

From the back, it must’ve seemed like Renjun was going through the greatest adversity in his life. His back was hunched so far forward and curled so deep into itself that it almost looked as if he was trying his best to squeeze the pain away.

 

It was a pity he couldn’t explain it to Jeno, before he’d come to any false conclusion, that the pain he was experiencing was _different._ His heart a nuclear reactor, spreading excruciating heat throughout his limbs, all the way to the tips of his toes and the ends of his hair. But it was the _good_ kind of pain, the one that let you know that you’re still alive. Because no matter how empty and unfulfilling he thought their kiss was, Renjun still found the answer to _is he or is he not,_ and that was a big enough source of happiness for him to ignore the biggest mystery of the 21st century.

 

But pain was still pain. And it hurt, _so badly,_ that Renjun couldn’t help but shed a bit (a lot) of tears just in the hope that it’ll make it that little bit more bearable.

 

But Jeno didn’t know that. As far as he knew, he’d just ruined everything and caused a person he cared about to feel a great amount of distress and when he spoke next, Renjun could hear _his_ seeping out from his words so thickly it caused him to stop the frantic tidy-ups.

 

“I… I’m sorry.”

 

Renjun didn’t even think when he turned around to face Jeno. Other than to roughly wipe the tears as best as he could by the nonabsorbent sleeves of his uniform, Renjun didn’t stop to think that he was going to embarrass himself by looking like a certified mess, with snotty nose and cheeks so red they were turning purple. He just did, because he couldn’t stand living in a world where he was the reason that the sun sets. “No, no, nonono it’s not that, I’m just,-” _Happy? Sad? Glad? Guilty? Needy?_ Is there a way to blender all those emotion and come up with one easy word to tell Jeno? In the end, he managed to come up with one word. Though it didn’t help in explaining anything to the poor, clueless chap standing awkwardly in front of him. “I’m just overwhelmed.”

 

And overwhelmed they were. Jeno firmly pushed himself away from the desk and for the next five minutes that they spent tidying up their painterly mess, they seemed to resort back to who they were on square one. Day one, hour one, minute one. Where everything was enveloped in dreadful silence heavy with each’s unbearable desire to pop it. But they didn't know what to say, especially to a stranger, in the fear that they were one word away from forever offending them.

 

But they were strangers no more, weren't they? What did he do wrong that they could switch from one extreme end of a relationship spectrum to the other in such a short amount of time? Was it because he cried? Was it because Jeno regretted ever listening to his guts that told him to go and kiss an emotionally unregulated weirdo? Though their silent vigil was quickly broken when Renjun fingers itched after they brushed against Jeno's, when he reached out to help Renjun store their ecosystem model at the top of their class' cupboard. What they had was too intriguing, too precious to let sink to the bottom of the ocean like a chunk of cooled lava.

 

He only needed to take a quick look over Jeno’s eyes to tell him everything he needed to know.

 

“Believe me. It wasn’t because of what you did,” the words hushed out of him in a wet mumble, before his common sense caught with his instinct and rushed to add on a better clarification, “I mean, yes it was because of the uh… the _kiss_ but it wasn’t you, it was what _I_ felt,- besides! It was me who forced,-”

 

First, Renjun’s sentence was cut by a loud relieved sigh wheezing out of Jeno’s lips. Then, he couldn’t butt in and continue on his explanation because Jeno suddenly broke into a loud, ringing laughter. And lastly, Renjun was reaped clean of his ability to speak when he saw Jeno’s much missed forever-smile beaming down on him like a true, unfiltered rays of the sun. Painfully bright it almost blinded him. “Will you be okay then?”

 

Took him a whole minute to gather enough brain capacity to offer Jeno an answer. And even then, it was just a shortened rendition to a sentence he'd said earlier.

 

"With what?"

 

In the face of his confusion, Jeno only gave him a simple smile before he leaned down, and captured Renjun’s slightly gaping mouth in another lightning quick kiss. It was just his _hello goodbye_ peck, more goodbye now than hello, topped with one little playful nip on Renjun’s lower lip to tie their wild adventures for that day with a pretty, shiny bow. But this thing, this quaint little thing somehow brought Renjun much more grievance than whatever deprived thing they did not even fifteen minutes ago.

 

"That?" His breath was so soft against his lips and Renjun imagined that he must’ve looked so pathetic, as he instinctively went and, once again, chased after the slowly retreating promise of pleasure as if he was a clueless moth, and Jeno’s smile was a giant, flickering UV-light fly trapper.

 

Renjun wanted to say, _‘and you expect me to go home with_ that _as the last thing in my mind? Thank you very much indeed, you dandy fucker.’_ But in the end, all that escaped from his mouth was a giddy laughter, following the one Jeno let out when he had to catch Renjun from wobbling himself down to a fall, as he was leaning forward way too much without any existing reinforcement but his thin trust that Jeno would always catch him if anything bad were to happen.

 

It was just his luck that his bet was correct.

 

“Definitely,” Renjun said, his voice trembling from how much he was quelling the desire to break off into a maniacal hop around the perimeter of their classroom. But try as he might, Renjun couldn’t stop himself from tilting his head up and returning to Jeno his own brand of a small smooch. Right at the tip of his blushing nose.

 

“So, yes or no?” He said, still slightly giggling as he scratched on the phantom itchiness that Renjun’s soft kiss brought to the sensitive skin of his nose.

 

“... do you seriously still need me to answer that?”

 

Their first kiss might’ve been the very definition of messy, _and also unremarkable,_ on Renjun’s part, at least. But the fleeting sensation of Jeno’s perfect, pearly white teeth nibbling on the thin skin of his lower lip made him realise that there were so much, _so much things_ that they have yet to discover.

 

And to discover them with Jeno? How blessed could he be.

 

_Of course,_

 

_Yes._

 

**Author's Note:**

> The title is a song by Cheeze aka my current fave k-indie (though they're not that indie anymore i guess) artist ([here it is](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-jZYbHudQU) if you want to give it a listen), because I exclusively listened to their albums when writing this story (yes i know, it's a total mood whiplash LOL).
> 
> I can't believe a dreamies ship is the one who helped me cut the ribbon to 'hardcore making out' fic section. It was... a very enjoyable writing experience tho l m a o , though i can't guarantee you if it'll be a mainstay in my fics going forward.  
> ps: if you can guess what literary work inspired this story i'll love u 100 times ksdjfsd
> 
> hmu @ my twitter [@moon__soil](https://twitter.com/moon__soil) ~


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